The data center work — which, some of the headlines aside, appears to be more about strict resource virtualization as opposed to cloud per se — is tied up in the IDF’s movement of bases into the Negev, the massive triangular-shaped desert area in the south.

Cloud or no cloud, it’s a bit of a coup to win work in such a security-stringent environment and can play into VMware’s promotion of its own technology as a good solution for secure and private data centers (or cloud). Amazon Web Services’ CIA cloud contract is reportedly worth $600 million over ten years.